Old School at Spocom 2016

The greatest hits of your favorite pre-‘90s chassis

There’s a reason why the Super Street staff heads to Spocom year after year. You can expect to see great builds in one event at a Spocom show, even midway through the year after countless vehicle debuts over several other shows. The name “Spocom” itself is hybridization of the words “sport” and “compact,” and it was back in ’06 when its founders felt like they needed to revive and keep the scene alive with a new kind of car exhibition. The following year the team held its first official event, and now ten years later Spocom returns to what’s become its customary home, the Anaheim Convention Center, as it has for the last few years.

One of Spocom’s strengths is its ability to bring in a diversity of cars, especially of the vintage variety. Rick Ishitani brought out his ’71 Nissan Skyline and word on the street is it was restored by legendary vintage car builders, Rocky Auto. Instead of making another GT-R clone, Rick embraced his trim and kept all the GTX emblems and panels. “I would like to keep it era correct and swap out the motor with an L28 with triple Mikunis,” says Rick, adding, “and I still need to change out all the bushings from the suspension components which are not only expensive, but hard to find.”

Another car that caught our attention was Migel Leo Aramas’ ’72 Datsun 240Z. Migel says, “I bought it non-running and rusty back in April ’15, and worked on it in my garage every night after work for a full year. I even had to cut the roof off and put in a new one at home.” Migel tells us that every single bolt on the car was changed and he also had to swap out the automatic transmission for a manual. Since it is an old chassis, Migel used an Energy Suspension bushing master kit and Eibach pro kit to improve handling. To keep things cool, a Koyo radiator and hoses were installed.

Needless to say there were some cars that we’ve featured, and some with a few changes, such as Rich Madlangbayan 240Z. When we featured it, the exterior was wrapped in a solid blue. Now however, Rich’s Z has been painted with one of the most iconic racing color schemes of all time; the Gulf powder blue and marigold orange trim combo.

We’ll never get tired of Janet Fujimoto’s clean ’70 Toyota Crown. To complement its muscle car exterior, it’s been stuffed with a 2JZ-GE motor mated to an Aisin-Warner A340E four-speed automatic transmission.

You have to give props where it’s due; it takes a crazy person to restore a classic and then modify it. One can only imagine how many man-hours it took to make these vintage cars become the showstoppers they are today. Some things just get better with age.